Mega Derived

OBLIVION PROS

• Quite pretty.
• Open-ended RPG.
• Gives people who owns 360’s something to do other than piss their money away and post on internet forums about how revolutionary Xbox Live Arcade is.
• It’s nice when you pull something neat off.
• Lots of stuff to do in the game.
• Reasonably addictive.
• You can get in on giant tornado of hype that’s surrounding the game and finally feel like you’ve found a clique where you fit in!
• Story is OK.
• The good quests are really good.
• Thieves Guild.
• Not WoW.

OBLIVION CONS

• Hyped up way too much. You can spot the hype in reviews and forum/blog posts when they say things like “Greatest RPG Ever”, which is a blatant lie
• Nerdy.
• FedEx quests.
• Still not as good as Planescape: Torment.
• Feels a little bit like the last fantasy RPG you played. And the one before that. And the one before that.
• Unable to talk about it with members of society – “so, I just rescued Hallaka’thleash from the clutches of the evil mage Okdon and my reward was two loaves of elf bread and a ring of absorb frost!”
• Will probably convince your dumb mates to buy 360’s, which will no doubt lead to future conversations like “Have you seen this game on the 360? Man, look at those graphics” and you’ll have to quietly push a screwdriver through you ear, into your brain, in order to dumb yourself down to the required level that you can give a moth-like “ooh, shiny!” response because otherwise they’ll get pissy and think you’re not backing up their four hundred quid purchase.
• Not enough customisation options for villainous moustaches. I got a pretty good goatee, though.

Outrun 2006 is released tomorrow and, seeing as how gaming media everywhere loves to pit games against other games to decisively decide the victor in a gruesome, gruelling battle of pros and cons, I figured I’d pit it against the current hot-topic of the moment: Oblivion. If you’re thinking the two games are so fundamentally different that it would be literally impossible to compare them, allow me to bring to your attention the fact that they both start with the letter ‘O’. Certainly grounds for comparison, I think. I was going to provide this in a hilarious podcast because they’re so popular right now, but I just typed it up because I was playing Oblivion. Brace yourselves!

The two fearsome titans of gaming step up to the starting line. The Enzo Ferrari speeds straight off, powerslides around a few corners and wins.

It’s official: Outrun 2006 is like other games, but faster.  

There’s been a bit of talk on forums lately about people “previewing” Outrun 2006: Coast 2 Coast over the weekend. What they actually mean is that the Xbox version was leaked onto the internet for all to steal, but they’re too proud to admit it. I’m not, I’d eat shitty chips from a seaside shanty in the summer to get a taste of something Sega have served up (alliterative combo – that proves I’m ‘cut out’ for real journalism!) so I had my own little ‘press preview’ over the weekend.

Here’s what I found: I deleted the iso off my Xbox this morning, then deleted the iso off my computer and then I scrubbed the filthy taint off my body all afternoon and begged Sega to forgive me by very almost buying a copy of Shadow the Hedgehog for £9.99 in the play.com sale. If you want me to go ahead with that transaction, Sega, you just give me a sign. I’ll do it.

This, I think, is conclusive proof that the best anti-piracy method (topical!) in the entire world is slapping “Sega” onto the box somewhere. It’s guaranteed to circumvent almost all known piracy methods. Which is more than I can say for Starforce, sometimes I just download and play Starforce-protected games because it’s like pissing in Starforce’s mouth.

Oh, yeah, and Outrun 2006 is sensational. I’ll probably do a grand post announcing why it’s so great when my retail copy arrives.

Even though they say “indefinitely postponed”, I think it’s pretty safe to say that Starcraft: Ghost in its current iteration is dead. Delete all the code they’ve done now and maybe give it to a third production studio and see how long it takes them to fuck it up. But the question remains: now that Starcraft: Ghost has been officially cancelled and thrown in the bin, how can employees of Blizzard Console officially spend their time?

Will they…

1. Look for more ideas from other games to steal and make into next lousy 3d Starcraft adventure game. Possible candidates: Devil May Cry, King Kong, Viewtiful Joe and Dragon Quest VIII
2. Fill the World of Warcraft universe with even more fantastic content, such as this incredible new (22/03/06) update of the characters doing dances.
3. Use their new free time to download even more illegal stuff on their work computers.
4. Put a cow level in the WoW expansion. Might actually make WoW fun for twenty minutes.
5. Become overlords of Korea
6. Not fix problems with queues and authentication that plague some WoW servers.
7. Consolidate Blizzard Console into Blizzard Entertainment because unless they’re porting WoW to the 360 they sure as shit ain’t gonna be working for a long time.

Or, possibly:

8. All of the above.

And, before one of you Blizzmaniacs dirties up my comments page with moans of “Blizzard Console aren’t the same studio that make WoW”, my point is that now they haven’t got anything better to do they might as well pitch in and help out.

So, a friend of mine (who’s been dead for about nine months now – he’s been on an extended vacation to Azeroth) decides to try and talk to me today, so naturally I try and play it safe and talk about stuff he’s likely to understand. Current political issues and talk about things that aren’t on computers were definitely on the no list, unless I wanted a dead, blank expression as my reply. So, I tried to talk about the hottest piece of news on the PC gaming front: Oblivion. I’ll paraphrase the conversation:

Don Martin: Wow, that Oblivion sure looks hot! Does it run on your machine?
xXxNiGhTeLfxXx: What’s Oblivion?

Look, look at how that awful RPG consumes people alive. It’s so tragic. Not only had he a) not actually heard of Oblivion, he b) didn’t even know that it’s just come out. What grubby little cave must you be living in to miss out on one of the most hyped games of the year? Shit, they even released countdown trailers to build up anticipation of the event!

I’m not going to force my own opinions of things onto others, but it costs £107.88 a year to play WoW. That could buy you 3.5971990663554518172724241413805 copies of Outrun 2006: Coast 2 Coast.

Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones for the Xbox is £9.99 at Play. The triple pack for the PC is a meagre £14.99. I find this pretty funny. Are Ubisoft trying to eject stock of that game really quickly or something? Trying to flog it off really cheap so they can bump it up the All Formats chart? Whatever, it doesn’t exactly show a lot of pride and confidence in a game that’s only like two months old. You’d still expect it to be at least twenty five quid.

Morrowind for the PC is just £2.99. I bought a copy even though I don’t like it.

But why does any of this matter? Outrun 2006: Coast 2 Coast is being released for £29.99. That’s by Sega and it’s not as depressingly frustrating as Sonic Riders so I want it but I can’t justify spending another thirty quid on Outrun 2. Hopefully they’ll do a Ubi and slash it to £9.99 within two months. Only, because it’s a Sega game, they’ll do it – unlike Ubisoft, those money pinching buggers - as they’re a great company and they love their fans.

UPDATE

Current Mood: Sega

UPDATE UPDATE

And if PC gamers can pull themselves out of whatever ‘Night Elf’ they think they’re eHumping, they can play it as well!

I think it’s fucking awesome that Sony is still supporting the PS2 when they want to kick the PS3 hype machine into warp factor one billion. Let’s face it, they could have slapped a couple of bells and whistles onto God of War 2 and flogged it as a PS3 launch title. But they haven’t. They know that gamers don’t – and won’t - necessarily have the cash to do the straight transition to PS3, so supporting the PS2 is a really cool and honestly quite nice thing to do.

Oh, and Kratos stabbing a monster to make holes, which he uses to climb up the monster so he can yank out his eyes? That is the most gruesome thing I have ever seen.

I know Sony are getting attacked a lot by people for being big fuckjobs but, let’s face it; Microsoft sure didn’t do anything like that. It was basically a “Hey guys we’re making the XBOX 360. You want one! Oh, that rusty old heap of shit Xbox? Yeah, no more quality first party titles on that for you. Have a couple of EA games or whatever. Make do!”

Plus, I think Sony can claim an irony bonus +5 by reminding everyone that God of War 2 has a 99.99% chance of being at least as good as anything next-gen. Because it’s not about the next-gen, people, or taking a game that’s already fucking out and tarting it up a bit for the 360, it’s about the fucking games.

Although, Sony, you’re still skating on awfully thin ice with that “Digital Distribution” shit. Don’t let me catch you trying to implement that behind my back!

I was just casually skimming through Eurogamer with my hand down my pants, looking for a couple of reviews that were written in a needlessly long and pretentious way when I stumbled upon this little nugget. It suddenly came to my attention that Phil Harrison and Sony are following the Valve and Blizzard example and are pretty intent on destroying videogaming. I pretty much realised this when I read this:

“Speaking at a press luncheon, Harrison also said that Blu-ray disc “will be the primary distribution method for the triple-A games that you will see on the PS3,” but that the “eventual shift” to digital distribution would be at a pace set by the consumer.”

Which can only mean one thing! Consumers must rally together and intentionally erode this horrible digital distribution system away until it doesn’t exist anymore.

Here’s how:

• Buy all your games from Amazon or Play or something (slightly cheaper than Game and they come shrink wrapped. This way we might also eradicate Game – win win!). You can check if you’re helping to destroy digital distribution by ensuring you’ve got a box and a manual with your disc. Remember, folks, if there’s no box, you’ve been conned into purchasing it digitally!
• Oh, and don’t buy games digitally; the whole thing is a piece of shit.

If you’re still on the fence and not convinced that Digital Distribution is not actually the worst thing that could possibly happen in the entire world, let me present you with a freakish version of what great games would have been like if this online shit existed a few years ago.

Oh, it was pretty exciting blowing up that tank in Metal Gear Solid but now I can’t continue playing because the next bloody part hasn’t even been MADE yet! What am I supposed to do with this half-finished game now? Play it again? Bollocks!

I was really pumped up about fighting this giant dragon in Baldurs Gate 2 but I’m going to have to wait an hour for it to download! Plus, the connection with the server keeps getting reset because the publisher has skimped out on providing quality hardware so they have more fifty dollar bills to shove down a harlot’s g-string. Now the bloody game is useless!

I think we can all agree that if digital distribution takes off then we are all doomed.

Oblivion is, apparently, a pretty serious game that doesn’t have time to muck around with casual gaming tossers. I hadn’t heard of the Elder Scrolls series before, but it sounds pretty fantasy like and my sources tell me that the last game in the series – some kind of game called ‘Morrowind’ – did it for all the pointy ears out there. In order to reach out to my RPG-fan demographic who, admittedly, aren’t too fond of me because of the whole ‘WoW = soul destroying tedium that only people who are dead inside would play’ thing. Regaining those lost potential visitors is important to me, so I nicked a copy of Oblivion off the internet because I didn’t have time to wait until tomorrow for it to be released here.

Blimey, it’s fantastic! It’s a bit slow at the start, sure, but you can really get up to some epic, dynamic stuff as soon as you get into it. I haven’t slept in two days, so I’m close to the end of the game and I thought it might be nice to share but a few of the fascinating main quests you can do in the game. The trouble is, I don’t have a Geforce 7380000GXT Ultra so the graphics don’t look quite as good as they do in all those whizzy promotional screenshots Bethesda were ramming down our throats up until release day.

Here’s me trying to increase my dexterity through one of the optional mini-games. It’s called “Ye Crossworde” and it’s such a well thought out and designed little number that I’m fairly sure they could release these things in real life and get a pretty good following. I’ve almost completed this one, thanks to my lucky Pencil of Illustrious Stabbing +4. In combat, it basically functions as a dagger with an eraser on the other end.

Oh! Hello! You just caught me beating a vicious bowl monster to death with my incredible Morningstar of Ultimate Domination +2. These bowl monsters look pretty timid but if you don’t watch yourself they’ll be throwing cereal-related bullets into your face.

Now I’m reading a Ye Olde Tome of Americane Psycho. I’m a mage so I have to read books and stuff quite a lot.

Here I am checking out the RP scene by looking for some romance for my character. Even mages get lonely! Later on, it turned out I couldn’t enter the exclusive sex tavern because my visa debit card was out of gold so right now I’m ‘grinding’ up and down the alleyways in the city, hitting old ladies until I come across one with some money on it.

So there we have it. Apparently the Official Xbox Magazine gave Oblivion an 11/4 and I’m inclined to agree.

Because games are much more fun when you get 100% in them, I’m pretty dedicated to the idea of getting everything there is to get in FFX. It doesn’t seem like it’ll be that hard, either, as the combination of the side quests and the sphere grid mean that maxing out your characters and getting 100% of the game is pretty much a punch in the face of traditional RPG’s. Getting to level 99 in your vanilla FF game, or level 60 in WoW, is a tiresome and drawn out experience. In FFX, it’s relatively quick and enjoyable; using a bit of item tweakery, you can exploit various enemies and stuff to essentially give you access to 99 sphere levels in one fight. Then you rocket around the sphere grid and can, pretty much, max out your characters in about a day or two. The challenge, however, is that you’ve got to train your party up to a point where doing this becomes viable. Only this is done, mostly, without having to fight monsters over and over and over and over and over until you’re a high enough level. You have to complete non-combat sidequests, you see.

As far as I can tell, this is all the extra stuff you get to play with:

• Lost Cactuars
• Monster Arena
• Fighting the Dark Aeons
• Finding the three secret Aeons
• Chocobo Racing
• Butterfly Hunting
• Blitzball Tournament
• Learning the Al Bhed Language

The Al Bhed language is a nice enough quest that runs through the entire game. You see books on the ground, you pick them up. Collect all 26 for shits and giggles. The Chocobo Racing, like I’ve said, is a completely insufferable pain in the bollocks. Dark Aeons are basically beefed up regular Aeons that will dish out stuff like 99,999 damage right into your face. I imagine defeating them is a hugely rewarding experience, but your party will need to be completely maxed out first. Butterfly Hunting and Blitzball are only 50% annoying.

I do wish they’d stop including the shitty minigames, though, because they’re not really an entertaining diversion. I have to do them, but I don’t enjoy doing them. The Monster Arena, on the other hand, is far more suited to the game and, dare I say it, quite enjoyable. In one of the areas in the game is a guy who will sell you weapons with a ability called “Capture”. If you strike a killing blow with one of these weapons, it gets added to the Monster Arena. If you collect all the monsters in all the areas, you get fat bonuses and access to Auron’s ultimate weapon. It’s the kind of sidequest that works perfectly well within the confines of the game’s engine, unlike the hideous nightmare that is the Chocobo Racing.

But, basically, you beef up your weapons and armour to convert your Overdrive (that’s the Limit Breaks, for any non-FFX’ers) gauge into AP (and that’s what you use to level up). Then you whack Auto Phoenix Down onto your armours. Then you fight a really strong monster and let it beat you to death over and over. 99 Phoenix Downs later, you flee from battle and have made enough points on the sphere grid to become strong. Do that a couple of times and then go and win the game. It’s easy and satisfying and comes without the added bollocks of having to grind for forty four weeks.

I hope to have it all the secrets done and have the game completed by this weekend. I’m guessing it’ll clock in at about 65 hours in the end. Seeing as I picked the game up for a fiver, that’ll work out as seven point six pence for each hour of entertainment. Not too shabby!